The invention relates to a method of transmitting an electronic database of displayable information items to a receiver. More in particular, the invention relates to the transmission of electronic television program guides. The invention also relates to a transmitter and a receiver.
A known method and arrangement for transmitting an electronic database of information items to a television receiver is generally known as teletext. Each of a plurality of teletext pages is an information item by itself or may comprise a plurality of information items, e.g. an overview of television programmes scheduled for a certain period of time. In addition thereto, menu pages are transmitted so as to assist the user in retrieving the information. Each menu page comprises menu items and page numbers of the relevant teletext pages. The user retrieves a particular information page of interest by reading its page number from a menu page and pressing said number on a keypad or, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,992,871, by positioning a cursor on the page number and pressing an OK button. A plurality of menu pages may be transmitted to form a tree structure.
The transmission of electronic television video guides, whether or not in the form of teletext pages, is a feature of growing commercial importance. Some TV stations (e.g. Pro7 in Germany) transmit TV guide information related to a plurality of TV stations via teletext. Teletext pages comprise the television programmes scheduled for a day or a part thereof. However, a user may not only be interested in the television programs of a certain TV station scheduled for broadcast in a certain period of time. He may also want to know which TV programs are currently broadcast by the receivable TV stations, or to have an overview of all programs in a certain category (e.g. news). For that purpose, some TV stations also transmit a further teletext page showing all programs currently being broadcast by a plurality of TV stations. A problem thereof is that the further teletext page requires additional transmission capacity. The information items concerned are plurally transmitted. Namely, each programme item is mentioned once on the page showing all programs of one TV station, once on a page showing all programmes being broadcast now, once on a page showing all programmes of a certain category, etc.
It is an object of the invention obviate the above mentioned problem. It is a further object of the invention to provide a method of transmitting an electronic data base, which renders it possible for a television receiver to make the plurality of items accessible in an attractive and userfriendly manner, and to present them in an attractive manner.
According to the invention, the method comprises the step of separately transmitting the plurality of information items and menu structure data defining the transmitted information items to be displayed. Herewith is achieved that the broadcaster can present the information items in a plurality of different ways, whereas the information items themselves need to be transmitted and stored only once. For example, today""s xe2x80x9cNine o""clock newsxe2x80x9d on BBC1 can be mentioned on a screen showing today""s BBC1 program, on a screen showing all programmes being broadcast now, as well as on a screen showing all news programmes. Further, by separately transmitting the menu structure, a large amount of local processing power can be dispensed with in the receiver. The invention renders it also possible for TV stations to promote themselves as stations providing the TV guide feature. The appearance of menus is broadcaster defined and offers the opportunity to include commercials in the menus.
In a further embodiment of the invention, data defining a property of information items is associated with said items, and wherein the menu structure data comprises attribute data defining a condition which:the property of information items to be displayed needs to match. The transmitter now needs to include in the transmitted menu structure only a search criterion (e.g. the category xe2x80x9cnewsxe2x80x9d), and the receiver autonomously displays in response thereto all information items matching said criterion.